Ugh, I was not able to get my blog out on Monday. I was not as productive as I wanted to be this week. Oh well, I'm writing now. Haha, that was a reference from an old post inspired by Anne Frank. But the intention I picked from this weeks classes comes from Zen Teacher Alan Watts

THE INTENTION

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.- Alan Watts -

ON THE MAT

Comparisons remove us from making an authentic connection with ourself. The problem is we live in a VERY competitive culture and growing up in that, it becomes easy for us to go directly to PREFERENCE.

I prefer modo flow over modo.

I prefer this teacher over that teacher.

Iprefer to do this pose, not that pose

I would prefer to have that persons body, that persons practice, they move so smoothly

Here is the truth of it, you are a star. You are the universe. The work we do in our practice today is simply removing any layers that hide that truth. So right now in this room we have a sky full of stars, and we make no comparison between right and wrong stars.

To punctuate this intention I shared a follow up quote by Alan Watts that summed our work up nicely. So as they came to Savasana i shared this:

What I am really saying is that you don’t need to do anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.”

OFF THE MAT

On the daily we are bombarded with media that pushes us into comparison. Marketing companies rely on you being weak enough so they can convince you of what you NEED to fit in and succeed. It all leeds to preference. I prefer this brand to that brand. I prefer this style to that style. Then we begin to define ourselves, “I am this type of person."

The practice of dropping our preferences and realizing that “nothing is wrong with us at all” is a practice of strength. Yoga practice is inviting us to tune into the fact that we are strong enough to stand in our own presence, the one that comes before preference. The big corps don’t like yogi’s. Haha.